China Central Television:

The rural reform 40 years ago unveiled the reform and opening up nationwide. Could you elaborate on the progress in deepening rural reform in the past ten years? Thank you.

Deng Xiaogang:

Thank you. I'll take this question. Reform is the key to rural revitalization. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has made a series of plans on its top agenda to systematically and comprehensively promote rural reform. For example, the central government has launched a batch of pilot projects to deepen reform and introduced fundamental and long-term reform measures to promote major breakthroughs in the reform of agriculture, rural areas, and rural residents, as well as other key areas.

First, solid progress has been made in rural land reforms. We have primarily formed a system of contracted rural land that separates rural land ownership rights, contract rights, and use rights, a major institutional innovation in rural reform after the household contract system. We have completed the verification, registration, and certification of land contract and management rights, which helped reassure over 200 million rural residents who had been issued a certificate of their contracted land. We have prudently promoted the policy extending second-round rural land contracts by another 30 years upon expiration, further consolidating and improving the basic rural management system. The management and service system for land transfer is constantly improving, and the appropriately scaled-up agricultural operations are enjoying healthy growth. The three pilot reforms on rural land expropriation, the marketing of rural collectively-owned land designated for business-related construction, and the system of rural land designated for housing have made major progress. A new round of pilot reform on the system of rural land designated for housing have been launched in 104 counties (cities or districts) and three prefecture-level regions.

Second, the reform of the rural collective property rights system has been basically completed. The auditing and liquidation of rural collective assets have been finished; the membership for the collective economic organizations has been identified; and the reform of the joint-stock cooperative system on for-profit assets has been solidly progressing. We have completed verification of 6.55 billion mu (436.7 million hectares) of collective land and 7.7 trillion yuan (US$1.15 trillion) of rural collective assets, including 3.5 trillion yuan of for-profit assets; we have identified 900 million members in around 960,000 rural collective economic organizations. Rural collective property rights have been better clarified, and the rural residents enjoy more property rights. The rural property rights transaction market is operating in an orderly manner, with the types of property rights diversifying and services improving.

Third, the establishment of a new type of system of agricultural operations has been accelerated. We have sped up fostering new agricultural businesses, launched the family farms initiative and the campaign to improve rural cooperatives, introduced trials to encourage commercial services for agriculture, and primarily established a policy system introducing small rural households to modern agriculture. The number of family farms reached 3.9 million, rural cooperatives over 2.2 million, and commercial organizations that provide agricultural services over 950,000.

Fourth, policies and institutions have been further refined to strengthen agriculture, benefit farmers, and raise rural living standards. The pricing mechanism for agricultural products and the market regulation mechanism have been improved. Minimum purchase price policies for rice and wheat have been adjusted in a timely manner, and the system of purchasing and stockpiling corn and policies for guaranteed base prices for soybeans have been reformed and improved. A new mechanism for combining market-based purchases with producer subsidies has been established. Direct subsidies to grain growers, subsidies for purchasing superior crop varieties, and general subsidies for purchasing agricultural supplies have been provided. The policy system for agricultural subsidies, upholding green development and ecological conservation as the guiding principles, has taken shape. Permanent mechanisms for integration and coordinated use of rural development funds have been implemented. The management model of "major projects plus task list" has been implemented. The investment guarantee mechanism of finance for supporting rural revitalization has been gradually established. In addition, more revenues from land sales have been spent on supporting rural revitalization. 

Furthermore, other key rural reform tasks have been organized in a coordinated way. For example, the comprehensive reform of supply and marketing cooperatives has been deepened to form closer ties with farmers, develop an array of service functions for agriculture, rural areas, and rural people, and provide more efficient market-oriented operation. Remarkable achievements have been made in the collectivization of land reclamation zones and enterprise-oriented reform of farms. The reform to relieve state-owned farms of social service responsibilities has met the targets. The certification rate of reclaimed land has exceeded 96%. Moreover, over 50% of the state-owned farms have been converted into standard companies. Positive achievements have been made in various reform tasks regarding the collective forest tenure system, state forestry farms and areas, water conservation management system, and coordinated administrative law enforcement in agriculture. At the same time, 66 experimental zones for rural reform have been built across the country, and more than 400 trials and experiments tasks have been carried out, serving as pioneers and pacesetters in the reform. Thank you.